Brutally kidnapped and separated in childhood, Tommo and Hawk are reunited at the age of 15 in Hobart Town. Together, they escape their troubled pasts and set off on a journey into manhood. From whale hunting in the Pacific to the Maori wars of New Zealand, from the Rocks in Sydney to the miners' riots at the goldfields, Tommo and Hawk must learn each other's strengths and weaknesses in order to survive.

Solomon's Song: The Australian Trilogy, Book 3

Here is the story of two families, branches of the Solomons, transported to an alien land. Both branches eventually grow rich and powerful. But through three generations, the families never, for one moment, relinquish their hatred for each other. This novel is also the story of Australia, from its beginnings to its coming of age as a nation.

The Potato Factory: The Australian Trilogy, Book 1

Always leave a little salt on the bread. Ikey Solomon's favorite saying is also his way of doing business, and in the business of thieving he's very successful indeed. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them. They are parted and each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land.

Four Fires

The four fires in this story are passion, religion, warfare, and fire itself. While there are many more fires that drive the human spirit, love being perhaps the brightest flame of all, it is these four that have moulded us most as Australian people. The four fires give us our sense of place and, for better or for worse, shape our national character.

Tandia

Tandia is a child of all Africa: half Indian, half African, beautiful and intelligent, she is only sixteen when she is first brutalized by the police. Her fear of the white man leads her to join the black resistance movement. With her in the fight for justice is the one white man Tandia can trust, the welterweight champion of the world, Peekay. Now he must fight their common enemy in order to save both their lives.

The Persimmon Tree

The Persimmon Tree opens in Indonesia in 1942 on the cusp of Japanese invasion and the evacuation of Batavia (Jakarta) by the Dutch. Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Duncan is on holiday there, in pursuit of an exotic butterfly known as the Magpie Crow. It's an uncertain, dangerous time to be in Indonesia, and Nick's options of getting out are fast dwindling. Amidst the fear and chaos he falls in love with Anna, the beautiful daughter of a Dutch acquaintance, and she nicknames him 'Mr Butterfly'.

Brother Fish

From the author of The Power of One comes an inspiring human drama of three lives brought together and changed forever by the extraordinary events of recent history. Inspired by real events, Bryce Courtenay's new novel tells the story of three people from vastly differing backgrounds. All they have in common is a tough beginning in life.

The Power of One

Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, this one small boy will come to lead all the tribes of Africa. Through enduring friendships with Hymie and Gideon, Peekay gains the strength he needs to win out. And in a final conflict with his childhood enemy, the Judge, Peekay will fight to the death for justice.

Jessica

Jessica is based on the inspiring true story of a young girl's fight for justice against tremendous odds. A tomboy, Jessica is the pride of her father, as they work together on the struggling family farm. One quiet day, the peace of the bush is devastated by a terrible murder. Only Jessica is able to save the killer from the lynch mob: but will justice prevail in the courts? Nine months later, a baby is born...with Jessica determined to guard the secret of the father's identity.

Whitethorn

From the author of The Power of One comes a new novel about Africa. The time is 1939. White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people fanatically opposed to the English. The world is also on the brink of war, and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany. Six-year-old Tom Fitzsaxby finds himself in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high mountains, where the Afrikaners side fiercely with Hitler's Germany.

Fishing for Stars

Nicholas Duncan is a semi-retired shipping magnate who resides in idyllic Beautiful Bay in Indonesia, where he is known as the old patriarch of the islands. He is grieving the loss of his beautiful Eurasian wife, Anna, and is suffering for the first time from disturbing flashbacks to WWII, the scene of their first meeting and early love. His other wartime lover is the striking Marg Hamilton, a powerful and influential political player in Australia who has remained close to Nick.

The Story of Danny Dunn

At just 16 years Danny Dunn has everything going for him: brains, looks, sporting aptitude - and luck with the ladies. His mother steers him towards a university education, but with just six months of his degree to go, he signs up for the AIF, driven by a desire to serve his country and plain wanderlust. Danny serves in South-east Asia, spends three and a half years as a POW, and returns a broken man, embittered and facially disfigured. He is scared and overwhelmed by the need to sort himself out, to find out who the hell he is....

Jack of Diamonds

Born and raised in a poor, working-class family in Toronto, Jack Spayd is the son of an unhappy marriage. After being taken under the wing of "Miss Frostbite", the owner of a local jazz club, Jack becomes a gifted musician, playing piano and harmonica. Fame and the allure of gambling takes him to Vegas, and prospects of fortune take him to the Belgian Congo, where he's heard it's possible to earn big money working in the most dangerous parts of the local copper mines.

Matthew Flinder's Cat

The story of a drunk, a boy, and a cat. Billy O'Shannessy, once a prominent barrister, is now on the street where he sleeps on a bench outside the State Library. Above him on the window sill rests a bronze statue of Matthew Flinders' cat, Trim. Ryan is a 10-year-old, a near-street kid heading for the usual trouble. The two form an unlikely bond.

Fortune Cookie

It's the 1960s and the world of advertising is coming alive - and it's an exciting world to be part of. Simon Wong, a Chinese-Australian and promising young advertising executive, is sent to Singapore to establish an office. He finds himself thrust into an environment that is at once strangely familiar and profoundly different; one where the rules that govern behaviour - both in business and in personal life - differ wildly from what he is used to. And where all is not what it appears to be.

Sylvia

From master storyteller Bryce Courtenay comes a colorful, lusty story set in the 13th century, an epic tale of a Europe torn by religious intolerance. The story centers around Sylvia Honeyeater, who sings like an angel and can literally charm the birds from the trees. The narrative also features the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Francis of Assisi, the Muslim Sultan and his harem, and the fervor that becomes the Children's Crusade and then, later, the Crusades.

April Fool's Day

This is Bryce Courtenay's moving tribute to his son, Damon, a hemophiliac who died from medically acquired AIDS on April 1, 1991, at the age of 24. April Fool's Day is controversial, painful and heartbreaking, yet has a gentle humor. It is also life-affirming, and, above all, a testimony to the incredible regenerative strength of love: how when we confront our worst, we can become our best. This tragic yet uplifting story will change the way you think.

Smoky Joe's Cafe

Thommo returns from Vietnam to an Australia that regards him as a mercenary guilty of war crimes. He begins to develop all kinds of physical and mental problems, and thinks it must only be him until he finds he is not alone. Ten mates, all who remain of his platoon who fought and died in the Battle of Long Tan, are affected the same way.

The Family Frying Pan

Mrs. Moses is a small woman with a big heart and enormous courage. The only survivor of a Cossack raid on her village, she takes with her a big cast-iron frying pan, so heavy that she can only sling it over her back. Yet this is no ordinary frying pan, it's The Family Frying Pan, blessed with a Russian soul.

Edge of Eternity: The Century Trilogy, Book 3

Throughout these books, Follett has followed the fortunes of five intertwined families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they make their way through the twentieth century. Now they come to one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the enormous social, political, and economic turmoil of the 1960s through the 1980s, from civil rights, assassinations, mass political movements and Vietnam to the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution - and rock and roll.

The Book of Human Skin

In 18th-century Venice, Minguillo Fasan, heir to a fortune, contrives to dispatch of his sister, Marcella, condemning her to the fate of a nun. But Marcella Fasan is tougher than Minguillo imagines, and, aided by a servant, a painter, a skin-obsessed doctor, a Scottish merchant and a cigar-smoking pornographer, she pitches her wits against her brother….

Adam's Empire

He thought he had everything until tragedy struck... Adam Ross, orphaned at nine, cherished a dream - that one day he would have land of his own. The opal fields of Coober Pedy offered his first glimpse of riches - and Nellie, a dusky beauty, provided his first taste of love... From the western plains of New South Wales to the balmy waters of Sydney Harbour, from the grinding heat of a West Australian cattle station to the eerie desert shores of Lake Eyre, Adam was driven by his ambition.

Shantaram: A Novel

Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum-security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear. Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

A Place Called Freedom

This lush novel, set in 1766 England and America, evokes an era ripe with riot and revolution, from the teeming streets of London to the sprawling grounds of a Virginia plantation. Mack McAsh burns with the desire to escape his life of slavery in Scottish coal mines while Lizzie Hallim is desperate to shed a life of sheltered subjugation to her spineless husband. United in America, their only chance for freedom lies beyond the Western frontier - if they're brave enough to take it.

The Waddi Tree

Two branches of the McAllister family lead very different lives on cattle stations in Central Australia. Rob, a stickler for correctness, manages a wealthy, company-owned property while his easygoing brother Sandy struggles to support his wife and son on an impoverished leasehold. When tragedy throws the families together, it ultimately drives them even further apart.

Publisher's Summary

Brutally kidnapped and separated in childhood, Tommo and Hawk are reunited at the age of 15 in Hobart Town. Together, they escape their troubled pasts and set off on a journey into manhood. From whale hunting in the Pacific to the Maori wars of New Zealand, from the Rocks in Sydney to the miners' riots at the goldfields, Tommo and Hawk must learn each other's strengths and weaknesses in order to survive.

Along the way, Hawk meets the outrageous Maggie Pye, who brings love and laughter into his life. But the demons of Tommo's past return to haunt the brothers. With Tommo at his side, Hawk takes on a fight against all odds to save what they cherish most. In the final confrontation between good and evil, three magpie feathers become the symbol of Tommo and Hawk's rite of passage.

What the Critics Say

"Narrator Humphrey Bower captures each character, making listeners forget that one majestic voice creates the various natives, the Irish, the English, and people of all ages. Few will fail to be enthralled by this adventure saga, which skillfully captures history while keeping listeners glued to their earphones." (Audiofile)

Immigration lawyer in Kansas City. I like Character driven dramas, fantasy (monsters, magic and witches oh my!) and coming of age stories. Favs include: The Book Thief, The Game of Throne series, Harry Potter Series, Dresden Files, Nightside series, anything by Neil Gaimen, 100 Years of Solitude.

The narration in this book is wonderful. I became entranced in the many different characters with many different accents. The story was excellent, but I have to say, as with the Potato Factory, I felt the story just stopped. Although both books pick up where the other left off, I sort of wanted an end of Tommo and Hawk"s story at the end of the book. However, it just gave me more reason to immediatly start the third book, Solomon's Song and find out what happened to the family next.

This is by far to date the best listenening experience I've had since joining Audible. The
author is now on my top 10 list and the narration
was spectacular. It was very difficult to turn off my audio player because I would close my eyes
and feel like I was in another place & time.

I was never a big fan of fiction, but the way Bryce writes making the events and adventure so real I find myself trying to look up facts on the characters. This book is brilliant, I had no idea this was part of a trilogy and have made a request to Audible to get the last book (requests can be made from the Contact Us at the bottom of the web page) and I'm currently downloading the first.

Can't get any better than a Bryce Courtenay novel narrated by Humphrey Bower. The characters are already colorful and unique and Humphrey gives each their voice. Hated to see this one end but I suspect a third is on its way. Hope it's soon.

I loved The Potato Factory and was eager to continue the story of the Solomon family in Tommo & Hawk. Mostly enjoyed this story, though there seemed to be more of the narrator telling the story rather than the characters. It basically centers around Tommo and Hawk's relationship and a lot of time is spent in New Zealand where they get involved in the Maori Wars. I found that part the most interesting and it made me want to learn more about that country's history.

I bought the Potato Factory with my monthly credit. What a great deal! Phhhffffttthhhh... No 6 hour novel for me. I'm getting 23 hours of Audible magic for FREE!!! That's what I thought, until only three days after spending my bright and shiny new credit, I finished the book. NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, I had to suck it up and buy this book. Jeez. 21 hours of book isn't cheep. Let's see. 21, divided by....carry the one....equals...86 cents per hour. Ok. I guess that's not too bad. I would have paid twice that. Ssshhhh... Don't tell Audible. But really, the book was worth every penny.

So, here's what the books about:

Hey! Let's go hunt whales! Yeah. That sucked. But being wrongly imprisoned and likely being hanged for murder sucks worse. Wait. What's that? The Maori saved us. Well, since we're already here, let's teach them better ways to win fights with these a**hole white guys who won't quit trying to take their land. Also, let's get with the ladies. They're hot! (Tragedy and sadness and spoilers.) Now we're in Sydney. Let's play cards and do drugs and drink stuff. Oh yes, and meet women, feed poor kids, save some Mongolians (or are they Chinese?) from a mob, try to earn some legal money, and become a bare knuckles boxing champion. And finally, once and for all, take down the mongrels.

It's like Forrest Gump goes to Australia. If it had been any other writer, the book would have failed miserably. But Bryce Courtenay is a genius. It's never unbelievable, but it is often tragic. I was boohooing within the first three minutes. As with the first book, the sex scenes bothered me. I may have the punctuation skills of a child, but I am an adult. An adult with a dirty mouth even. But, phew! Those sex scenes make me blush. Go on, Mr. Courtenay! Get your freak on!

Great! Now I'm done with the second book, and only six days since I got my last credit. Ok. No more Starbuck's or fancy nails for me. I'm saving my pennies for the next book.

I just wanted to say "astounding brillance" Bryce has done it again. Keeping me on the edge of my seat. I really love becoming apart of the book being able to picture it in my mind. Being able to picture Tommo in the wild. Listening to both Tommo and Hawks recount of what happened whilst they where kidnapped. Then being their with both of them as they help the Mauri in their fight. I particularly liked the scene where tommo is laying in the water after the battle I felt that, that was a pivotal point. I loved both Characters but I can't help lean towards Hawk as he is this gentle giant that wants only the best for people and fights for the suppressed and his dedication to his brother over everthing else in Hawks life. I was particualarly surprised at the ending, however I liked the fact that Tommo gets what life is about. Bryce is I would say one of the best writers that I have come across. I remember Bryce saying " I never learnt anything out of history books" And I can say thanks to Bryce I have learnt more out of these books than I have ever from history books about my own country. I have listen now to all the audio titles and I have not been dissappointed on any of them. I can't wait for the last in the triology of Solomons. Also waiting for the others that I know he has written as well. Thanks Bryce

Retired CFO, Army wife, Mom of five, Grandma of six, two sons who served in combat, love to read books that reflect my values and faith, love mysteries, historical, military stories, and books that don't waste my time . . . if it doesn't have an ending that was worth the wait, I'm not a happy camper.

The more I read Bryce Courtenay's books, the more I learn, and the more I LIKE learning . . . From England to Austrailia to New Zealand . . . I'm not so good at a strict dose of history . . . but OMG, this is so NOT THAT. This second book about the two twins, one black and one white, born to whore in the port that whalers frequented, and then claimed by an unlikely pair, Ikey Solomon and Mary Abacus, is a remarkable tale of the love between two brothers. And so much more . . . I can't wait to listen to the last book in the trilogy . . . a few more day until my next credit!!!

I thought the "Power of One" was one of the greatest book I ever "read" ("heard"). Then I "read" the "Potato Factory" and fell in love with Ikey Solomon, despite his dreadful character. I also totally enjoyed the "Potato Factory". Then came the brilliant "Tommo and Hawk". Words cannot describe my enjoyment. The characters are enthralling, the story line unmatched by anything else I have ever read or heard.
Bruce Courtenay is in a galaxy of his own and Humphrey Bower brings it all to life. It is incredible how he can bring so many different characters, male and female, to life. You know when you "read" a book and you don't want it to come to the end.
Thank you Bruce! Thank you Humphrey! Thank you Audible.com for letting it all come to life.

Narrator is outstanding really bringing all the characters to life. Absolutely loved this book and now to Solomons Song....

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

H. J. Collins

UK

5/29/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Australian epic"

Fantastic story brilliantly narrated. Part of a trilogy starting with The Potato Factory. Excellent adventure.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

jens

2/19/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Fantastic in a different way than book 1"

Once again a 5 star rating. Different place and different time, but new adventures and truly amazing characteristics once again. Can't wait to get the last book!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

brian r

England

12/30/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Moving and gripping story"

Excellent follow up to the potato factory. A reliable author with a real difference. Would recommend to those with an interest is historical novels.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Alicia

10/9/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Well trodden themes, but still good enough"

The gentle black giant and the wily white alter ego is everywhere in film and literature. I wish that it hadn't recalled the awful 'Twins' starring Danny DeVito and Arnold Swarzenegger, but there you go. It's a formula that works, in a way. I was hoping for more of an Australian feel to the books, but there's no depiction of the landscape or the climate or even the people, really. For this reason, I enjoyed the Maori scenes the most. I had to work to rid myself of the notion that we weren't still in London.

Humphrey Bower remains a wonderful narrator, but I would have like to have heard more of Australia in the characters.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Hilary

Shepton Mallet, Somerset, United Kingdom

10/2/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"As good as the first!"

It's always slightly risky to listen to the second of a trilogy when the first has made such an impact. If anything, I was more captivated by this than 'The Potato Factory'. I love the characterisations, the fact that I can't predict what's coming next, that it's a really well-told tale. And again, of course, Humphrey Bower is magic.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Jinty

England

1/4/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"The twins unite ..."

What made the experience of listening to Tommo and Hawk the most enjoyable?

without a doubt the wonderful adventure, exciting story that only Bryce could Pen once again.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Tommo and Hawk?

when Mary set off to find her boy Hawk into the wilderness, and the absolutly Fandabbydoosee Maggie Pye !!!!

What about Humphrey Bower’s performance did you like?

Again! as in the Potato Factory he was ********** super. could listen to him all day long

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Tommo and Hawk..

Any additional comments?

this second book in the series is just wonderful I enjoyed it as much as the P Factory. a lot of interesting facts about Australia and how the country was being run , some of which is quite an eye opener,

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Ronan

United Kingdom

7/14/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"Good first half, dull second half"

What did you like best about Tommo and Hawk? What did you like least?

Based on the storyline of Twins, in this case Arnie was black and Danny DeVito played cards. The first half was quite interesting but the second half felt like a bulk standard Hollywood triumph of good over evil story.

Would you recommend Tommo and Hawk to your friends? Why or why not?

Possibly

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Narrator was fine

Did Tommo and Hawk inspire you to do anything?

Question whether to buy the sequel

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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